Subject: (whorl) Re: Tartaros's Blindness

From: Robert Borski <rborski at charter.net>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 22:21:42 +0000

El cucaracha having written:

<Tartaros is not only blind, was not only born blind, but is utterly and
incurably and inalterably
blind; even when riding/in possession of Auk, he cannot see through Auk's
eyes but must ask Auk to describe things.>

Pardon my naiveté here--I am an end user, not a code jockey--but aren't the
gods of Mainframe, unless they're riding someone or something--computer
programs? And if the sibling "programs" of Tartaros--i.e., Scylla, Molpe,
Sphingx, etc.--can process visual information, then it should be no great
matter to splice the appropriate compiler sequences into Tartaros. That it
hasn't ever been done before seems strictly a dictate of Pas's--perhaps
reflecting his own bias against a defective son. As Scylla at one time puts
it, "Daddy had this thing about a male heir." Certainly an impaired
child--especially a first-born son--may have been disappointing to Typhon,
perhaps even reflecting on his own notions of virility. But look at who it
is that sides with father Pas when the revolt takes place in Mainframe:
Tartaros--"the only unwilling god," as he puts it--and what better reward
for the son who had every reason to be bitter, but remained true, than
restoring his sight?

That Tartaros was born blind, and remained so for the entire first voyage of
the Whorl and then some seems incontrovertible; that he must die the same
way, given the super technology of Wolfe's Short Sun milieu, seems more than
a little suspect.

Robert Borski

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---

From: David DiGiacomo <dd at adobe.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Feb 2001 21:47:07 +0000

>way, given the super technology of Wolfe's Short Sun milieu, seems more than

Typhon's technology is extremely limited, and fallible.

The gods are not AIs, they are simulations of scanned humans.  There is no
suggestion that they can be reprogrammed.  You will notice that Pas was
not able to remove Piaton's virtual head or to correct the various
character flaws of his children.

Finally, Wolfe presents Tartaros's blindness as an axiom, not a theory.